BRITAIN will accept up to 1,200 asylum seekers from the Sangatte camp near Calais as it finally closes on December 30, Home Secretary David Blunkett said yesterday.

BRITAIN will accept up to 1,200 asylum seekers from the Sangatte camp near Calais as it finally closes on December 30, Home Secretary David Blunkett said yesterday.

Of the 4,800 people registered at the massive centre since it shut its doors to new applicants last month, the UK will accept 1,000 Iraqis and up to 200 Afghans. They will be allowed into the UK on four-year work visas, rather than as asylum claimants, and will be helped to find jobs.

Mr Blunkett, announcing the decision after meeting French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy in London, described the closure of "a festering sore in Anglo-French relations" as a "major achievement".

Mr Sarkozy said the Red Cross camp, which has handled 67,000 asylum seekers in the past three years, will be dismantled and handed back to owners Eurotunnel four months earlier than planned.

But Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said closing Sangatte was treating a symptom rather than the cause of the "growing asylum disaster".

"What we need are one-stop shop accommodation centres which can deal with applications quickly and efficiently.